ND Talks About Whether Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Is Maxing Out PS4, It's Benefits For Coders & More

Here is from Naughty Dog's Corrinne Yu, whether Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is already pushing PS4 to its limit and what benefits PS4 brings to the table of developer and whether the console is easy to program.

[miyamoto]

Like what Mark Cerny said: "Easy to Learn Difficult to Master" that is the PS4

[GarrusVakarian]

"Our trailer doesn't look good enough to be prerender CGI"

Well clearly it does, because ive seen quite a few people claim that the trailer was CGI, refusing to believe it was real time in-engine, even after confirmation of the fact.

That must be a massive compliment for them.

[Hellsvacancy]

I'm one of those people, I still can't believe that was in-game, I believe in Bigfoot, Aliens, Mermaids (maybe not Mermaids) Loch Ness, all of it, i've got a BIG imagination................. but can't believe a game could actually look THAT good

[Legendary-Status]

umm yeah right she's being cocky..that trailer look damn near CGI fr fr I had watch it about 20x's when it came out & still do cause it look's so good.. like come on the sand in his eyebrow's the cut the fly..you can see his blood flow in his face..you can see his vein's..his face structure like that's amazing

[Prime157]

Lukas, you beat me to it... I wonder if she said that out of genuine artistic brilliance or modesty.

"Our trailer doesn't look good enough to be prerender CGI"

Ah, it still sends shivers down my spine. Unexpected.

[Army_of_Darkness]

"Uncharted 4: A Thief's End trailer was in-game real game level footage and not pre-render CGI"

wow.

[Neixus]

To make it more easy to believe that it is indeed rendering in real-time / in-game, let me show you how big files the cutscenes would been otherwise.

Take a fraps i recorded as an example; It's 1080p and 60fps, it lasts 1min, which makes it a 1,4GB file.

Now Naughty Dog likes to include lots of cutscenes, TLoU had 2hours worth of cutscenes, if they were like UC4 with 1080p/60fps. That would make this;

Let's take my 1min movie, and multiply by 120 (2 hours)

1,4GB x 120 = 168GB
That would not fit on a Blu-Ray disk, to say the least.

So it's either 168GB of additional cutscenes, or render them in real-time, the latter is the obvious thing they will do.

Sigh, I'm done for the school having summer vacation and i still do math. Oh well, atleast It's related to games =D

[Anonagrog]

@Neixus,

That's why we use different compression and decompression methods/algorithms for handling all kinds of data; be it textures, cinematics, audio, animation clips, etc. We would struggle to fit any of it on physical media or in memory otherwise.

[frostypants]

Glad they put that annoying rumor to bed.

[MrGunny94]

You do know that the FRAPS saving process.. Has nothing to do with Game Design assets & game mechanics saving?

We use diferent type of export and packing/compres.... So no the game won't be 168gb.. Maximum i'm seeing it's 50 GBs.. even CGI's pre render go up to 120 GB... so imagine.

Please do not say this things are you're confusing those who don't understand game design.

FRAPS memory you said has NOTHING to do with the estimated file size of a game... Especially FRAPS that creates large files uncompressed.

[Neixus]

I converted it to h.264 in AE, which is one of the best options to choose from. So while it ain't compressed, it's alot smaller than a raw file.

The raw file from fraps would been like 4-5 gig

[OpenGL]

Yeah, the FRAPS codec uses a very small amount of compression to minimize CPU usage so that there will be as small of a performance penalty as possible.

[Evilsnuggle]

Corrinne Yu for president of the united state of American.

The haters are down playing the uncharted 4 trailer as just cutscenes . But if you look at The Last Of Us as an example . The Last Of Us cutscenes graphics were very similar to the game play graphic in The Last Of Us. I would say that the gameplay graphic went do 25% in graphic fidelity the cutscenes and the in gameplay graphic seem quite similar . I'm sure uncharted 4 will be the same.

[cyclindk]

George bush jr jr for president. Need more snl material for will ferrel

Whats a war or two in the name of freedom fries and imaginary WMDs for a good laugh?

[Hardcore_gamerxbox]

For me was mark cerny said : Don't worry uncharted 4 will get downgraded like rest of ps4 games

[sam_job]

this comes from Corrinne Yu, do i need to tell you whether to believe her or not.. she is a legend

[98xpresent]

She worked on halo4

[SuperBlunt]

And did a great job, now she has a powerhouse that lets you actually work and not optimize

[Anonagrog]

@SuperBlunt,

Regarding the need to "optimize", what are you on about?

Why do you think Corrinne wouldn't have to "optimize" any more? Also, why do you think "work" and optimizing are separate things, when in reality the ability to know how and when to optimize come under the umbrella of 'work' anyway (especially in this field)?

[THC CELL]

Talk about online hehehe love ng man they are the most amazing dev

[no_more_heroes]

It is, based on what ND currently know about the hardware. As they learn more about how best to use the hardware and what it can do, they'll be able to get even more from it.

Same thing goes for the XB1.

Eventually there is a ceiling (a ceiling that's a bit higher on the PS4 than the XB1), but its less "Maxing out the hardware" and more "making full use of their current knowledge of the hardware".

This is especially true of exclusively developed games. Can't wait to see what's in store.

[hkgamer]

True. The the phrase maxing out the hardware shouldn't really be used so often. Since most of the time consoles is all about making everything more efficient to improve everything.
Hardware specs on ps4 and xbone isn't all that great so maxing it doesn't mean much.

[FriedGoat]

And now she works for the most talented gaming studio in the world. Seems like the best place for her.

[kingPoS]

The new term should be-

We're optimizing so we can achieve maximum efficiency. Even now, we still have yet more assets to optimize.

Or something like that

The old saying-

We just pigionedholed bunch of code in, it's maxed out, we can't squeeze anymore in.

Or...

To optimize is to maximize.

Gateway MT6706 2008

[oODEADPOOLOo]

Title is alittle misleading makes it seems as though she answered the question directly. Interesting dev viewpoints though so I cant complain. Of course if ND is probably close to it if not already, this game is on the top of my wishlist regardless next to MGS 5 and Batman. I do think shes def one of the best hottest devs in industry, lol.

http://media.tumblr.com/tum...

[hkgamer]

The article or interviewer maybe didn't ask the right questions, what needs to be asked is if it was running real time on the ps4 and not something that's running at 1fps and then edited.

[Kayant]

"not something that's running at 1fps and then edited" - Loooool you really think it's possible for it to be edited from 1 second to look as smooth as it does on the trailer....

http://www.naughtydog.com/s...

Still saying it's just a cutscene or you won't believe until gameplay with hud and all is shown is understandable but saying that was edited footage that was sped up from 1fps to 60fps is highly laughable and stupid.

There are hints it's real-time and ND are not doing pre-rendered cut scenes anymore.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...
From a dev at Ubisoft.
https://twitter.com/shinobi...

[hkgamer]

how do you think TLOU cutscenes were made? probably not 1fps but its most likely something very low and then all mashed together. Theres a reason why naughty dog doesn't use real time cutscenes and I doubt it is because of loading times.

"Loooool you really think it's possible for it to be edited from 1 second to look as smooth as it does on the trailer.... "

How do you think videos are made? basically put all frames together and then it would be smooth again. imagine a 600 frames clip, if it was running at 60fps it would be done in 10 seconds. 1 fps = 600 seconds. Every frame wouls still be reproduced which means that it has nothing to do with smoothness. So I thin something that is running from 1 fps adter being edited would look smooth. seems like someone needs to read up.

ok read up the links you provided and it does seem to confirm that it is running real time. Still think you need to know understand how tlou and other ps3 games handle cutscenes.

[Kayant]

"how do you think TLOU cutscenes were made? probably not 1fps but its most likely something very low and then all mashed together. Theres a reason why naughty dog doesn't use real time cutscenes and I doubt it is because of loading times."

It won't make sense because the animation will look choppy why do you think they had to redo all the animations for the remastered PS4 version for 1080p 60fps

"Our cinematics are now running at 1080p and 60fps, and that involved rendering them all from scratch,"
http://www.videogamer.com/p...

There were rendered on multiple PS3s offline not edited or sped up with software in anyway.

https://twitter.com/cbalest...
http://i.imgur.com/wEqm1.jp...

[plaZeHD]

One thing nobody is talking about is that this is the same engine that powered Drake's Fortune.
Naughty Dog are optimization wizards.

[younglj01]

Wow did not know that..thanks for that little bit of info this morning...

[TFJWM]

Yes they said they made a mistake last gen building a new game engine right at the start of the generation. This gen they said they will wait. I'm not sure I can imagine what games will look like on a new engine....

[SuckerKick12]

I remember I was a bit disappointed when they said they will use the same engine as PS3. But now I can see why. It is a powerful engine.

[mogwaii]

If games will look this good maxed out then who cares, it looks amazing!

[younglj01]

I doubt UC4 is going to "max" out the PS4. People are forgetting with an console you can optimize your ass off. I personally think PS4 is an High-End PC. Think about the tech demos that were shown on Graphics Cards 3-4 years ago. Now think putting that tech in box and coding for that and that only.

With High-End PCs you can have so many different types that its hard to optimize for them all. With Sony and Mr.Cerny deciding to go with PC parts inside of an console was down right genius. The game that was going to tell me if PS4 is truly an High End PC was PlantSide 2.

With the Confirmation that PlanetSide runs at 1080p and targeting 60fps on the PS4 is totally mind-blowing. I personally think with this achievement Sony/AMD are showing how expensive PC gaming have become. Think about those people that have spent $1,000s of dollars to run PS2 at 1080p/60fps. Now its possible on an $400 console, how is that not an slap in the face.

Another title that could set the bar on the PS4 and cause so much backlash against the developers at first. If Star Citizen release on PS4 at Max setting then I think we have an game changer.

But wow never thought in gaming I would see CGI quality game-play. I have yet too see any game at this quality in real-time...

[TheDevKit]

PS4 is not a high-end PC.

[AndrewLB]

Yep. And no console can do graphics anywhere close to this... https://robertsspaceindustr...

400,000+ poly ships
100,000+ poly characters

This game is literally in a different world when it comes to graphics. Now that Alpha 0.8 is out, im gonna buy in. I loved the developers games growing up. Origin Systems was one of the best studios EVER. It was a shame when EA got their hands on the company and destroyed it.

[younglj01]

Only PCs that are able too run PS2 at 1080p/60fps are High-End PCs only. Not mid-range PCs but only High-End PCs. I bet whatever PCs you truly own can not run PS2 at those settings.

[AndrewLB]

^^^ Good luck on your wait for star citizen on console...

Christopher Roberts (developer) wrote:
------------------------

So let me say this.

Star Citizen IS a PC game. It will NEVER be dumbed down for a lesser platform. We will NOT limit the input options or supported peripherals to the lowest common denominator. We will NOT pass on features and technology just because they will only run on some hardware configurations.
-----------------------

Well because then they are essentially inexpensive small form factor PCs with a custom operating system focused on gaming and who wouldn't want a bigger community of Star Citizens? If Sony or Microsoft are willing to let their platform be open, then I see no real difference between them or Valve’s Steambox, a Mac or a PC running Linux, all of which are platforms that I don’t think this community would mind supporting as they are all viewed as “PCs”. In fact most Macs are probably much worse gaming machines than a next gen console (as Apple is the antithesis of what I love about PCs)

https://forums.robertsspace...

[ScottyHoss]

I'm confused, I get that he's referring to consoles as essentially PCs, so is he saying that it may make it to a console which is powerful enough? (if their is one, maybe at the end of the generation when they know how to squeeze every drop out of them or next Gen)

[younglj01]

"Star Citizen IS a PC game. It will NEVER be dumbed down for a lesser platform."

Lol that comment made me laugh. You understand how many PCs will be able to run that game right? High-End PCs only. So if you don't have one then you will be consider as an lesser platform even if you do have an mid-high gaming rig...100,000s of High-End PCs been able to play your vision or up to millions of gamers on PS4. Developers also say never until they see more cash that can be made...

[ErazorDJ]

Uncharted 1 - PC 0 Fight!

[shmeedy24685]

I think Uncharted 4 graphics will be the best on console seen but of course something else will top it soon enough. I just wonder when we'll reach the limit, we must be getting very close!

[XiSasukeUchiha]

I quote "this not my final form"

[Let_the_games_begin]

Game of the year.

Can't wait!

[Pancit_Canton]

That Naughty Dog 3.0 Engine.Now that's what i called project beast.

[Belasco]

It's a dumb question, this generation is just getting started. Perhaps it's maxed out based on the tools and knowledge they have now, but these things always improve over time.

[Sy_Wolf]

That's not a question, but I think I understand what you're saying. Maxing out a console doesn't mean that you can't get more out of it. For example call of Duty maxes out the PS3. But The Last of Us also maxes it out. It's all to do with optimization. So even if Uncharted 4 maxed out the PS4 it still wouldn't be the ceiling for Naughty Dog in terms of graphics and gameplay.

[Belasco]

Optimization means a lot, for instance I am running a decent gaming rig, intel I7, 16 gig ram, and hd7850's x2 with beta drivers 14.6, yet I can only play Watch Dogs on medium settings, anything else and it chugs. My point is you can run Space Invaders on a top of the line gaming rig, but if optimization really sucks it will run like crap. Same goes for consoles.

[Sy_Wolf]

Yeah, that's basically exactly what I said. If that's not what you were asking what were you asking?

[Belasco]

You are correct, that is what you said, apologies. Wasn't asking questions, just being conversational.

[e-p-ayeaH]

Cutscenes in Uncharted 3 and Last of Us also look pretty damm great the gameplay is what i want to see.

[MultiConsoleGamer]

I kinda doubted that it would max out the tremendous untapped power of the PS4 this early in the gen.

One thing is for certain, it's guaranteed to look amazing!

[PS4FEVER]

I hope to see some more footage that takes place during the daytime with more effects going on. The only thing that wowed me was the charactel model. The color palate of this night time level was identical to one of the levels of uncharted 1.

[Azzanation]

What I don't understand is these games are Linear like Ryse and TR. There the easiest games to make look the best.